South Africa has one of the most innovative insurance markets in the world. It is also considered one of the leading microinsurance jurisdictions and commercial insurers have reached significant penetration in the low-income market albeit largely through funeral and credit life insurance. Various environmental and political factors have combined in the last decade to incentivise commercial insurers to explore new ways of doing business in the lowincome market. Between 2006 and 2008, many case studies on distribution channels and interesting products within the South African microinsurance landscape were identified and documented1, including some that have been exploring innovative ways of reaching the lowincome market through retailer or cell phone intermediation. For a number of these, the models were so new that the experience was insufficient to comment on the success or failure of the model.